Augustine on ecology

So Augustine had some weird opinions on how young girls shouldn't bathe because we should be ashamed to look at our own bodies - which is ludicrous and clearly the product of his having been extremely hamsup in his youth. But have you ever known anyone to be right about everything? I like what he has to say about ecology, even though if you had said "oecologia" or whatever to an ancient Greek-speaker, they might have said "What, the art of housekeeping?"

Chapter 16.—Of the Ranks and Differences of the Creatures, Estimated by Their Utility, or According to the Natural Gradations of Being.

... These are the gradations according to the order of nature; but according to the utility each man finds in a thing, there are various standards of value, so that it comes to pass that we prefer some things that have no sensation to some sentient beings. And so strong is this preference, that, had we the power, we would abolish the latter from nature altogether, whether in ignorance of the place they hold in nature, or, though we know it, sacrificing them to our own convenience. Who, e.g., would not rather have bread in his house than mice, gold than fleas? But there is little to wonder at in this, seeing that even when valued by men themselves (whose nature is certainly of the highest dignity), more is often given for a horse than for a slave, for a jewel than for a maid. Thus the reason of one contemplating nature prompts very different judgments from those dictated by the necessity of the needy, or the desire of the voluptuous; for the former considers what value a thing in itself has in the scale of creation, while necessity considers how it meets its need; reason looks for what the mental light will judge to be true, while pleasure looks for what pleasantly titilates the bodily sense. ...

No place on earth can be called a wasteland, except for what humans themselves have laid waste. Even deserts are ecosystems, even though they don't look like it to the the careless eye. National Geographic is one publication that's done a really good job of bringing this to public attention, for instance (which is why I'm annoyed at how dumbed down it's become in the last several years).

Someday, I will write what we saw in the Philippines last year - a national park being eaten away by hectares of illegal abaca plantations.

Note that Augustine is also pointing out how human evaluation is so flawed that we even refuse to place a greater economic value on a fellow human than an animal or thing, even though most people would acknowledge that the human has greater value on some moral scale.

Chapter 22.—Of Those Who Do Not Approve of Certain Things Which are a Part of This Good Creation of a Good Creator, and Who Think that There is Some Natural Evil.
This cause, however, of a good creation, namely, the goodness of God,—this cause, I say, so just and fit, which, when piously and carefully weighed, terminates all the controversies of those who inquire into the origin of the world, has not been recognized by some heretics [the Manichaeans, to wit - translator's note], because there are, forsooth, many things, such as fire, frost, wild beasts, and so forth, which do not suit but injure this thin blooded and frail mortality of our flesh, which is at present under just punishment. They do not consider how admirable these things are in their own places, how excellent in their own natures, how beautifully adjusted to the rest of creation, and how much grace they contribute to the universe by their own contributions as to a commonwealth; and how serviceable they are even to ourselves, if we use them with a knowledge of their fit adaptations,—so that even poisons, which are destructive when used injudiciously, become wholesome and medicinal when used in conformity with their qualities and design... And thus divine providence admonishes us not foolishly to vituperate things, but to investigate their utility with care; and, where our mental capacity or infirmity is at fault, to believe that there is a utility, though hidden, as we have experienced that there were other things which we all but failed to discover. For this concealment of the use of things is itself either an exercise of our humility or a levelling of our pride; for no nature at all is evil, and this is a name for nothing but the want of good.
...Now God is in such sort a great worker in great things, that He is not less in little things,—for these little things are to be measured not by their own greatness (which does not exist), but by the wisdom of their Designer; as, in the visible appearance of a man, if one eyebrow be shaved off, how nearly nothing is taken from the body, but how much from the beauty!—for that is not constituted by bulk, but by the proportion and arrangement of the members. But we do not greatly wonder that persons, who suppose that some evil nature has been generated and propagated by a kind of opposing principle proper to it, refuse to admit that the cause of the creation was this, that the good God produced a good creation.

I'm very tickled by the phrase "fit adaptations" because it sounds like something an evolutionary biologist would say. Even though they're meaning different things, though, they have the same sense...those functions which a living organism is best suited for.

He's probably right, that this contempt for whatever parts of nature aren't directly and obviously utilitarian to man is partly derived from a Manichaean mindset, that there's an evenly matched good vs. evil struggle on the metaphysical plane and therefore half of the physical world is also evil. It probably was useful to the Europeans when they were going around stealing everyone else's land.

...I should be fair. Destruction of the environment isn't something that originated in Europe only a few centuries ago, and in all likelihood it's probably as old as civilisation. In the last few years I've noticed (well, there's probably a lag between people saying it and me noticing, since I'm not an anthropologist) that anthropologists and historians are saying more and more that there were other civilisations that pushed themselves over the edge into collapse, like the Anasazi (the Gears' The Summoning God is really good, btw, and I fully plan to read their other Anasazi Mystery novels).

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Anyway, going off topic...the main point of this post is that anyone who thinks that "the environment" is some hippy neopagan or evolutionary secularist propaganda or whatever bad names you care to slap on it...YOU'RE A MORON AND A HERETIC TO BOOT. St. Augustine says so. Hehe.

Just realised that name-calling is totally un-Christian...okay, I'll shut up now before I get myself into any more trouble. I suck. =P